Thread: Public land deer - 53 years ago.

we still make a lot of conventional bales up here. its a great work out picking them up.

When we had the dairy farm it was nothing to pick up 2000 a night ( there was a gang of you doing it)

good fun and a beer at the end of it.

Originally Posted by TeRei

Hard to beat the spirit of the era than reading Neville Toohills book Out Spotlighting. It is a cracker including the sales of possum skins to Dunedin. Went down the Whanganui river road this week and saw them making the old short hay bales. Spent 2 years doing hay including 24 and 36 hour stints. Imagine asking people today to do that.

- we run up to three conventional balers peak time - they do both hay and silage wrap - I should add I work for a large contractor with up to 35 drivers in a big day and we can do 1000 acres in a good day - we do a lot of little square wrap bales and can sell all we do - we do 100,000 rounds a year- wrap silage and hay - thousands of tons of silage with loader wagons trailers and trucks into pit silage - who would do it today - well Dec 3 I turned 70 - what did I do - 16 hours in the tractor - dumb - but Zoe and I can go out for dinner every now and then instead of chicken -

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

- we run up to three conventional balers peak time - they do both hay and silage wrap - I should add I work for a large contractor with up to 35 drivers in a big day and we can do 1000 acres in a good day - we do a lot of little square wrap bales and can sell all we do - we do 100,000 rounds a year- wrap silage and hay - thousands of tons of silage with loader wagons trailers and trucks into pit silage - who would do it today - well Dec 3 I turned 70 - what did I do - 16 hours in the tractor - dumb - but Zoe and I can go out for dinner every now and then instead of chicken -

Many yrs ago i started carting hay in my school holidays,13yrs old then,my first summer holidays was payed in pounds.Use to get up to 28pds for the long week,days were 6am till 10pm if the weather was good.Had about 150 pds in the bank by the time school holidays finished.Did 8 summer holidays carting hay,last four yrs of that was when i was doing my carpentry apprenticeship.Had enough money to put a deposit on the section im living on today.Those hay carting days were good,keeped you fit and strong and xtra money in the bank.A4 bedford truck could take 125 bales,with about 20 trucks just carting hay,gangs of 3.There use to be some big hay stacks built out the back of Temuka on the Moores and McCully farms.Temuka transport still ticking over today.

Originally Posted by Trout

Many yrs ago i started carting hay in my school holidays,13yrs old then,my first summer holidays was payed in pounds.Use to get up to 28pds for the long week,days were 6am till 10pm if the weather was good.Had about 150 pds in the bank by the time school holidays finished.Did 8 summer holidays carting hay,last four yrs of that was when i was doing my carpentry apprenticeship.Had enough money to put a deposit on the section im living on today.Those hay carting days were good,keeped you fit and strong and xtra money in the bank.A4 bedford truck could take 125 bales,with about 20 trucks just carting hay,gangs of 3.There use to be some big hay stacks built out the back of Temuka on the Moores and McCully farms.Temuka transport still ticking over today.

Respect. Thats the thing isn't it. On here no one knows anything about anyone. We just make assumptions on the here and now statements. Tells us nothing.

Originally Posted by Trout

Many yrs ago i started carting hay in my school holidays,13yrs old then,my first summer holidays was payed in pounds.Use to get up to 28pds for the long week,days were 6am till 10pm if the weather was good.Had about 150 pds in the bank by the time school holidays finished.Did 8 summer holidays carting hay,last four yrs of that was when i was doing my carpentry apprenticeship.Had enough money to put a deposit on the section im living on today.Those hay carting days were good,keeped you fit and strong and xtra money in the bank.A4 bedford truck could take 125 bales,with about 20 trucks just carting hay,gangs of 3.There use to be some big hay stacks built out the back of Temuka on the Moores and McCully farms.Temuka transport still ticking over today.

That's amazingly good money, and bloody long hours - I never did anything like that. I worked my holidays at the Silverstream Hospital looking after 'old gentlemen' who'd been parked there. Started there when I was fourteen and worked all my holidays there until I started full time work at 17. That was in a laboratory and the pay for a forty hour week was 7 quid ($14).
Got no idea what I earned at Silverstream, but I was happy - it gave me pocket money and was a job I enjoyed

That hospital had been built by the American's for their servicemen who were training here during the war - it was a pretty big place.

Originally Posted by SF90

That's amazingly good money, and bloody long hours - I never did anything like that. I worked my holidays at the Silverstream Hospital looking after 'old gentlemen' who'd been parked there. Started there when I was fourteen and worked all my holidays there until I started full time work at 17. That was in a laboratory and the pay for a forty hour week was 7 quid ($14).
Got no idea what I earned at Silverstream, but I was happy - it gave me pocket money and was a job I enjoyed

That hospital had been built by the American's for their servicemen who were training here during the war - it was a pretty big place.

My uncle was in Silverstream, he served overseas in WW11 and as a driver, his truck was struck and the fire melted his foot, boot and all, he was dragged from the truck ok, but had severe foot damage.
Later in life he had his legs amputated. He died in Silverstream from memory.

Originally Posted by Trout

Many yrs ago i started carting hay in my school holidays,13yrs old then,my first summer holidays was payed in pounds.Use to get up to 28pds for the long week,days were 6am till 10pm if the weather was good.Had about 150 pds in the bank by the time school holidays finished.Did 8 summer holidays carting hay,last four yrs of that was when i was doing my carpentry apprenticeship.Had enough money to put a deposit on the section im living on today.Those hay carting days were good,keeped you fit and strong and xtra money in the bank.A4 bedford truck could take 125 bales,with about 20 trucks just carting hay,gangs of 3.There use to be some big hay stacks built out the back of Temuka on the Moores and McCully farms.Temuka transport still ticking over today.

We did 6 tier high normally on an S Bedford. Clatter clatter of the ground drive as the bales came up. We once did 13 tier high on a Farmers Transport truck at the back of the Awatoto fert works in Napier.[now an industrial park]The driver wondered why it was taking so long to load. Stopped the truck and had heart attack. Blew his stack [excuse pun] then asked us to take a few tier off. Eventually he saw the joke. 17 years old and crazy as hell.

Originally Posted by TeRei

We did 6 tier high normally on an S Bedford. Clatter clatter of the ground drive as the bales came up. We once did 13 tier high on a Farmers Transport truck at the back of the Awatoto fert works in Napier.[now an industrial park]The driver wondered why it was taking so long to load. Stopped the truck and had heart attack. Blew his stack [excuse pun] then asked us to take a few tier off. Eventually he saw the joke. 17 years old and crazy as hell.

We never had a elevator,one guy on the ground picking up,one on deck stacking and one driving.Rotate on every load from paddock to stack.4 tier high,2 across =5th tier,then 1 row on top from front to back of the load=125.If i had light enough bales i could balance bale on my hands at fall reach and flick it on top of the 4th tier.We sometimes got to use a S Bedford R tick,bloody long deck that could take a lot of hay.Had a etin diff.On some late evenings trying to get home in a hurry,driver could get 75mph out of it empty.It could corner so fast with its long deck.

I remember pack horses in the Urewwera's - they'd bugger the hillside tracks.
I remember one that had fallen in a hole and there were three blokes trying to dig it out, then five of us - and we couldn't get that horse out. The bloke shot it in the end ......... and that's another memory.
Two days later I walked into the wrong watershed and spent two days wondering where I was. Nearly got stepped on by a deer that shied when it realised I was there - moved sideways of the track after that and went back to sleep in my survival blanket.

Knew about the Caples - never got there.

I still like the. 222 story with the deer on the slip, Ruahines? Where you mate said it was to far for his .270 and you shot it and found your .222 shot went in the ear and you found the bullet on its tongue.

Originally Posted by nor-west

I still like the. 222 story with the deer on the slip, Ruahines? Where you mate said it was to far for his .270 and you shot it and found your .222 shot went in the ear and you found the bullet on its tongue.

Thats true. Ruahines. The bullet went exactly into its ear hole, but we never found the bullet. Not sure where the story finding it on its tongue came from. It was around 400 yards. The last time I went past that slip was 13 January, 2017. I was 69. There was a deer on it and I pretended not to see it and walked straight past. Its a steep one.
I did get one near the Mangoira saddle though, and that was the last deer I shot in the Ruahines. Maybe I might get back up there this summer, I want to.

Here's that last one.



My little camp


And the slip that I shot the deer in the ear with my .222 on...
Interestingly it was a 9 pointer and because we were meat hunting I biffed the head into the scrub, but for those days it was pretty good (Orua rats we called them).

Originally Posted by Tahr

Thats true. Ruahines. The bullet went exactly into its ear hole, but we never found the bullet. Not sure where the story finding it on its tongue came from. It was around 400 yards. The last time I went past that slip was 13 January, 2017. I was 69. There was a deer on it and I pretended not to see it and walked straight past. Its a steep one.
I did get one near the Mangoira saddle though, and that was the last deer I shot in the Ruahines. Maybe I might get back up there this summer, I want to.

Here's that last one.

Attachment 213796

My little camp
Attachment 213797

And the slip that I shot the deer in the ear with my .222 on...
Interestingly it was a 9 pointer and because we were meat hunting I biffed the head into the scrub, but for those days it was pretty good (Orua rats we called them).

Attachment 213798

It's surprising where those trebly pills can end up.A had a bomb up in the Poulter one evening on a mob in fairly open country where I could only reduce the range belly crawl fashion down to about 2 hundy yards before running out of cover.Seven in &one up up of Hornady 55grn in my Sako.
Opened up and got 2 ,then as the mob started to string on afterburners the range soon started to stretch the barrel.Mentally counting down to the last round,what the hell,a pig n a poke,so Kentucky windage ,2 deer high & 3 deer forward & squeezed off.One thousand and one... ,one thousand and two.. and she falls over.Getting over to it I thought it would be a case of finishing off with the knike,but nope stone dead. Because I was intreaged to know how she was so unlucky to run into that tiny bit of metal lobbed in the dusk @ perhaps 550 yards?? I quicky found the spent projectile.It had slipped between two ribs untouched and was buried in the heart basically as new.Because I'm such a skin flint I kept it thinking I could reload it leading to a warped case of two deer with one shot! Photo is the recovered projectile showing minor spiral distortion and rifling witness marks against a std 55 grn pill

How my father taught me, folding the back skin (back steaks also) through the hind legs and pinning with the tail….makes a comfortable carry.

Many life lessons learnt, like persistence, appreciation….. and the list goes on.

Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by Stag

How my father taught me, folding the back skin (back steaks also) through the hind legs and pinning with the tail….makes a comfortable carry.

Many life lessons learnt, like persistence, appreciation….. and the list goes on.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks. Yes the back steaks are still attached to the pin bones and folded down through the bum cavity. The skin keeps them clean.

I remember the Lochinvar blokes but the Wainui Trust doesn't ring a bell.
There was another station there, can't remember its name - but very well known. It was just to the south of Clements Road and I think was owned by the Mormon's back then, and that got spotlighted a lot. If they caught you on there they smashed your gun, gave you a hiding and threw you over the boundary fence.
I never went on there, but I do remember spotting to the north of the mill one night. It was all low scrubby shit in there and tussock with a lot of flat bottom gulleys and there were deer down in them, mobs of them.
Got lost that night, so I built a small mountain of scrub and tussock as tall as I was and crawled in the middle of it. I was never warm but I did manage to get some sleep and in the morning I crawled out to find a hell of a frost.

I was camped in one of the mill houses and they were proper houses with rooms and still in pretty good nick with beds, tables, chairs, coalranges, pots, pans and cutlery and the communal 'shitter' was a tin hut with a chimney vent thirty yards away.
My neighbour (Albert Mitchell) would spot me sneaking out to the shitter, give me a minute ot two to get settled - then put a bullet through the vent. He always did it, found it tremendously funny - and I'd sit there scrunched down low as I could on the throne as that vent wasn't all that high.
I got on pretty good with Albert, he was twenty years older than me and knew a hell of a lot more, but he could be scary sometimes. He had forearms like Popeye and I saw him pull a knife on a bloke at the pub and he got crowned with a beer jug real quick.
Then he saw a squirrel which I found funny, and that made him angry - threatened to put a bullet in me if he spotted me in the bush ........... and I wasn't entirely sure if he would, or wouldn't.
Was in the pub one day and one of the Barry's mentioned he'd heard about it ............
"What're you gonna do ?"
"Dunno ?"
"I'd bugger off if I was you, he's a bit loose,"

So, a couple of days later I buggered off ..............

Then a few months later I went back - was sort of a 'more-ish' place ..............

And Albert was still there .........